👑 Authority: Complete Guide to Authority Building, Indexing, Digital PR & Outreach

This article is split into 2 parts. Part 1, Part 2

The Authority section in Search Atlas is where you go to build trust signals that help your pages and your brand get discovered, indexed, and referenced — by Google and by LLMs.

This guide is written as a click-by-click UI walkthrough so users (and internal teams) can quickly answer:

✅ Where do I find each tool?
✅ What does each section do?
✅ What’s the exact workflow from start → publish → index → outreach → tracking?

🧭 Where to Find Authority

📍 Left sidebar (global navigation)

1. In Search Atlas, look at the left navigation rail
2. Click 👑 Authority (crown icon)

Once you click it, you’ll see a secondary menu expand with tool groups like:

• Authority Building

  • 📰 PR Distribution
  • ☁️ Cloud Stacks
  • 🧷 Indexer
  • 🔗 Link Building (Executions / Outreach surfaces)

• AI Visibility (formerly LLM Visibility)

  • 🧠 QUEST (AI Visibility (formerly LLM Visibility))

• Digital PR

  • 📣 Campaigns
  • 📥 Inbox
  • 📤 Sent
  • 🧩 Templates

🧱 Authority Building

Authority Building is where you create and accelerate authority signals:

• PR placements (brand mentions + links)
• cloud-based link assets
• faster discovery + indexing
• link building execution workflows

📰 PR Distribution (Press Release Distribution)

✅ What it’s for

Use PR Distribution to distribute press releases to a network of outlets to generate:

• 🔗 backlinks
• 🗞️ mentions
• 📈 faster brand trust signals
• ⚡ indexing acceleration (when paired with Indexer / indexing services)

📍 Where it lives (UI path)

Left Sidebar → 👑 Authority → Authority Building → PR Distribution

👀 What you see on the PR Distribution main screen

At the top left of the main content area you’ll typically see:

• A large page title: “Press Release Distribution”
• A short description explaining what the tool does
• A prominent purple button: ➕ New Release

Above the table area, you’ll also see:

• A Project selection area (e.g., “Select a project”)
• Filters and dropdowns (depending on the view)

📊 The Press Release table (tracking your PRs)

Below the header is a large table with columns like:

• Created Date 📅
• Headline 📝
• Target URL 🔗
• Target Keywords 🧠
• Published Date ✅
• NEXT STEP (action buttons)

🟣 “Resume” / “View report” buttons

On rows where a press release is ready to distribute, you’ll see a “Resume” or “View report” button on the far right in the NEXT STEP column.

⋮ Row actions menu

On the far-right edge of each row, you’ll see a three-dot menu (⋮).
Click it to reveal options like:

• Export ⬇️
• Delete 🗑️

🔑 Signal Genesys API Key (Important Setup)

In the PR Distribution screen header area, you may see an API Key label and a small gear icon ⚙️.

📍 Where it appears

Near the top of PR Distribution (upper area), there is:

• A small API Key area
• A gear icon that opens the configuration

🧩 What happens when you click it

A modal appears titled:

“Signal Genesys API Key”

Inside the modal you’ll see:

• A text input field (paste your key)

• Buttons:

  • Cancel
  • Update ✅

✅ This is what lets PR Distribution sync and display press release distribution capabilities directly in your account.

➕ New Release (Multi-step flow)

Click ➕ New Release to open the creation flow.

👈 Left-side stepper panel

On the left, you’ll see a vertical “Steps” progress block with numbered steps like:

1. Select A Project
2. Create Your Press Release
3. Edit & Review
4. Distribution

Select a Project

At the top of the form panel you’ll see Select A Project.

You typically get dropdowns like:

• OTTO Project (dropdown)
• GBP Project (dropdown)
• Target URL (text field)

🧠 Knowledge Graph section

Below project/URL selection is a Knowledge Graph panel — a big form block that “pre-fills” business context for content generation.

It includes sections like:

Business Info

• Business Name
• Business Language (dropdown; shows “Automatic Detection” and language list)
• Phone Number
• Email Address
• Website
• Business Description
• Country
• City (Locality)
• Postal Code
• State (Administrative Area)
• Street Address
• Google Map Embedded URL

Authorship

• First Name
• Last Name

Images & Media

• Logo (upload)
• Photos (Required: 1 image)
• “Add Video URL” ➕

Social Profiles

• Dropdown selectors for platforms + URL fields
• “Add Social Link” ➕

✅ These details help the system produce more accurate, consistent PR content (especially when generating variations).

Distribution (Distribution Channels screen)

When you reach Distribution, you land on a screen titled something like:

Distribution Channels

This is where users choose which outlets / packages to distribute to.

📍 What it looks like

• A large category dropdown near the top (e.g., Category: Apps & Software)
• A table of channel options grouped by tiers
• A right-hand Summary box showing credits/costs

🧾 The Summary box (right side)

On the right, you’ll see a sticky-style panel with:

• Selected channels
• Total sites
• Publication cost
• Content variations cost
• Indexing cost
• Editorial review cost
• Total credits (big number)

This makes cost and selections transparent before publishing.

🧰 Additional Services (checkboxes)

Near the bottom you may see Additional Services with options like:

• ✅ Dynamic PRs (creates unique content variation per channel; shows credits cost)
• ✅ Priority Indexing (sends PR links through indexing service; shows Free or cost)

🚀 Publish button behavior

At the bottom right:

• A Back button (left)

• A primary publish button that reads like:

  • “Publish to X channels”
  • If none are selected, it can show “Publish to 0 channels” and remain inactive/disabled.

☁️ Cloud Stacks

✅ What it’s for

Cloud Stacks let you generate AI-backed content assets and publish them across trusted cloud-hosted platforms to strengthen:

• 🔗 backlink profile
• 🏛️ domain authority
• 🧭 indexation signals

📍 Where it lives (UI path)

Authority → Authority Building → Cloud Stacks

👀 Cloud Stacks main screen layout

At the top:

• Title: Cloud Stacks
• Description text explaining the purpose
• Primary action button (purple): “Create Cloud Stacks (15 credits)” (or similar)

Below that is a table of previously created Cloud Stacks with columns like:

• Created Date
• Target URL
• Target Keywords
• Cloud Stack Status (buttons like Select Sites / Draft Status / Published)

🟣 “Select Sites” buttons

Many rows include a purple Select Sites button in the status column.
This is the trigger to choose where to publish your stack.

✅ “Published 13 of 14 Sites”

Some rows display a status like:

• Published 13 of 14 Sites
  Often this appears as clickable/expandable status text, indicating progress.

⋮ Actions menu (Export / Delete)

On the far right of each row you may also see a three-dot menu (⋮) with:

• Export ⬇️
• Delete 🗑️

➕ Add Cloud Stack (Multi-step flow)

Click Create Cloud Stacks to open the guided flow.

👈 Left-side stepper panel

On the left you’ll see steps like:

1. Select A Project
2. Create Your Cloud Stack
3. Edit & Review
4. Select Cloud Stack Sites

Select a Project

You’ll see a form that mirrors PR Distribution’s top fields:

• OTTO Project (dropdown)
• GBP Project (dropdown)
• Target URL (text input)

Then the Knowledge Graph block appears again (business info, authorship, images, social links).

⚠️ You may see a note like:

Updating the Knowledge Graph here does not update it elsewhere.

Meaning: edits here are for this flow/context.

SSelect Cloud Stack Sites (The publish targets)

This step opens a big selection panel titled:

Cloud Stack Sites

✅ What it looks like

A two-column checklist UI with:

• A Select All checkbox at top

• A list of cloud platforms (each with logo + checkbox), such as:

  • Cloudflare
  • Vercel
  • Scaleway
  • AWS
  • Bunny
  • Contabo
  • Wasabi
  • Azure
  • GitHub
  • Tencent
  • DigitalOcean
  • UpCloud
  • Exoscale
  • Backblaze

At the bottom right:

• A Publish to X sites button
  If none are selected it may show Publish to 0 sites and be disabled.

✅ Publishing here creates distributed assets + backlinks pointing to your target.

🧷 Indexer (URL Indexer)

✅ What it’s for

The Indexer submits URLs for indexing so search engines discover pages faster (especially useful after publishing, PR, or new backlinks).

📍 Where it lives

Authority → Authority Building → Indexer

👀 Indexer main screen layout

Top area includes:

• Title: URL Indexer
• Description: indexing quickly / no waiting
• Primary button: Index URLs
• A visible usage indicator like Consumed Quota: X used of Y

Below:

• “Analyze Batches” or batch tracking area
• A large empty-state table when no batches exist

🧲 Index URLs (Submit URLs for Indexation modal)

Click Index URLs to open a form titled:

Submit URLs for Indexation

Inside you’ll see:

• Batch name (required)

• URLs (one per line) (large textarea)

• Buttons at bottom:

  • Cancel
  • Submit ✅

📌 Best practice: Make batches meaningful (e.g., “PR Links – Jan 2026” / “New Blogs – Week 3”).

🧠 AI Visibility (QUEST)

QUEST helps you understand what the SERPs and sources say about a query — then generates structured Q&A that can be used for outreach and campaigns.

Where it lives

Authority → AI Visibility (formerly LLM Visibility) → QUEST

QUEST main screen layout

Top:

• Title: QUEST
• Description: analyzes query, extracts insights, crafts questions and expert answers
• Query field: “Enter query”
• Green button: Analyze query
• Quota indicator at top (e.g., “0 used of 30”)

Below:
A table of Analyzed queries with columns like:

• Query
• Status (Draft / Campaign launched)
• Results count
• Date
• View button

View a QUEST analysis

Click View on a row.

🧩 The screen splits into functional areas

Left: Q&A Table

A table with:

• Question column
• Answer column
• Toggle controls (like “Highlight sources”)

These answers are meant to be:

• outreach-ready
• expert-formatted
• source-backed (when highlight sources enabled)

Right: Data Sources panel

A right rail titled Data Sources showing:

• list of source URLs (checkboxes)

• selected count

• controls like Select all / Deselect all

• a big CTA button at bottom like:

  • Create Campaign with X Domain

✅ This is the bridge from AI Visibility (formerly LLM Visibility) → Digital PR outreach.

📣 Digital PR (Outreach)

Digital PR is where you build campaigns, send outreach emails, track replies, and manage templates.

📍 Where it lives

Authority → Digital PR

You’ll see:

• Campaigns
• Inbox
• Sent
• Templates

📣 Campaigns (Outreach campaigns dashboard)

What you see

Top:

• Blue button: Create new campaign

• Two inline links:

  • Manage connected emails
  • Global blacklist

Below:

• Campaign table with performance columns (opportunities, emailed, replies, response rate, etc.)
• Top right: Manage folders button

Create Campaign modal (step flow)

When you click Create new campaign, a modal appears with steps across the top:

1. Integrations
2. Email Present
3. Follow-Up Emails

In Step 1, you’ll see:

• Campaign name field
• Folder dropdown
• Target type selector (Keywords / Domains)
• Keyword input area
• Filters row (country/TLD/domain rating/traffic/etc.)
• Blacklist area for excluding domains

Bottom right:

• Next Step button

✉️ Manage Connected Emails

When clicked, you get a compact panel that lists:

• Email addresses
• Status badges like ✅ Connected
• A link to Add new email

🚫 Global domains blacklist

This opens a large text field page titled Global domains blacklist.

You can:

• paste domains separated by commas
• import from CSV
• click Update list when ready

Use this to exclude domains globally (e.g., major platforms, competitors, irrelevant properties).

📥 Inbox (Replies)

Inbox shows:

• a syncing notice banner (“Email syncing can take some time”)
• filters: From / Campaign / Subject / Milestone
• table columns for contact, last reply, campaign/opportunity, status, milestone

This is where users manage conversation state.

📤 Sent (Outbound log)

Same structure as Inbox, but for outbound messages:

• useful for monitoring delivery and campaign activity
• helps reconcile what was sent vs. what got replies

🧩 Templates

Templates are shown in a card grid layout with previews.

Top:

• button: Create new template
• template search bar

Continued in Part 2 →